Baldwin School - Prism Yearbook (Bryn Mawr, PA)

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jFurtfjer Cjjougljts on ttnoUmtg People One of the great disadvantages of a private school is that we are shut off from close intercourse with people of a different class from ourselves, with fundamentally different conceptions of life, with rich gifts for us out of their battle for a living or their love of beauty inherited from the Old World, with lives tragic from meeting the desperate problems which tear our civilization, with needs which it is our responsibility to meet. The challenge of the editorial of the last issue of The Milestone has made me want more than ever to share with you, if I can, some glimpses of this other side of life which came to me at the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers. I often found that these girls straight from the factory had a passion for making the world a more beautiful place and a vision of how it might be done that stripped away all the complacency of one who had had every opportunity. I think of a Russian Jew who came to this country when she was ten, who had gone to a private school in Russia where a funny little old man had taught her the alphabet, who went three years to school here in America and who then—thirteen years old—went into the factory. “I loved school, especially reading,” she said, “but I was the oldest, and I had to help support the family.” She has read most of the important contemporary writers, and she questioned me profoundly about meanings in such masterpieces as Dante’s Divine Comedy. With a will to beauty and utter selflessness, she has dedicated herself as a volunteer to organize her comrades; it is so that she has come to feel that, as she says it, “we cannot live to ourselves alone.” Many of the workers have learned this lesson in a bitter school. A Swede, because she had kept an expense account for years and knew how much money a week a girl needs in order to live respectably, testified before the minimum wage board of her state, lost her job because of this and could not get another in her home town because the Chamber of Commerce had “blacklisted” her for her testimony. A skilled telephone operator, who helped to make possible the present reasonable hours, who is therefore blacklisted all over the country and able to work at her trade with the telephone company, only if she were to change her name, nevertheless feels that the only thing that matters is to work for the good of all her comrades. A hatmaker from New York is a veritable Hamlet in her struggle to harmonize with her conscience the terrible facts she has to face. Again and again they expressed their sadness at the contrasts in life; again and again I wondered why they were not more bitter. One of them, a foreigner of rare gentleness and 11

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Milestone Donors Report Submitted by the Department of English Poetry— First prize: “We Come in the Cold of Morn,” Senior Poem, by Eloise Crowell Smith, published in The Book of 1922. Honorable mention: “Fantasie,” by Eloise Crowell Smith, published in the November Issue. The Department of English also commends “A Lugubrious Sonnet,” by Frances S. Oakford, published in Drama and Poetry. From the Lower School, “A |Winter Fairyland Song,” by Barbara Kirk, published in Stories, deserves special notice. IM AG IN ATI VE PROSE— First prize: “Francois Villon Celebrates Christmas,” by Elizabeth W. Barringer and Frances S. Oakford, published in Drama and Poetry. Editorial Prose— The Department of English feels that this year a piece of editorial prose of such distinction has been written that they have recom- mended a new prize to be awarded when there is work of this kind sufficiently distinguished to merit it. The School gives it for the first time to Religious Instruction in School: An Anszver,” by Frances S. Oakford, published in the May Issue. The Department wishes to recommend the sustained excellence of the editorials during this year. Humorous Writings— “The Journal of an Undeveloped Mind ” by Janet Turnbull, published in Croiv’s Nest, is worthy of mention. Business Management— The Department especially commends the work of Florence Clothier as business manager during 1920-1921 and 1921-1922, the two most difficult years financially that The Milestone has faced. When she took office, it was doubtful whether The Milestone could be printed during that year because of the soaring price of pub- lication and the business depression which made it unusually difficult to secure advertisements. Her untiring efforts and care- ful planning have made it possible for the regular six issues to appear each year. 10

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sincerity, wrote about a luncheon which she had attended at one of the estates near here, “When we arrived at the house, a butler dressed in white opened the door and showed us to the garden. On the lawn in front of the house were tables and on them all kinds of fruit and most expensive dishes; waiters waited on every table Sitting by the table one could see nature’s beauty—meadows with tall grass, flowers of all kinds, and in the far distance a ridge of hills and forests; the trees along the hills, well-grown, wealthy in leaf, and touched by the rays of the setting sun, gave strong, luminous colors. Perceiving all this beauty, I thought with horror of the people who must dwell in the cities in small rooms and congregate on the steps or sidewalks, where children have not a place even to stand. I thought of our neighbor who could not find any work for eighteen weeks; of his little girl who had to stay home from school for not having shoes to wear; of Mrs. Simon, who lives on the fourth floor and has no water, for the plumbing is so poor. Thinking about all these things, I felt so depressed that when I heard the music which was also on the program, I heard cries of thousands of people deprived of all that makes life worth while living.” Their minds are constantly searching for the remedies that will free human life from this tragedy, and the best of them, not content with cease- less group activity, challenge the depths of individual hearts. I recall especially one paper with its awkward foreign turn of phrase: “Who are you, you who advocate tolerance without knowing what it means to be tolerant, you who advocate freedom and are the first to enslave everyone about you? All, all of us are a part of this whirlpool where we are dragged down and where we drag others down. In our moments of unselfishness have we ever stopped to count toward how many we are unselfish? Take the mother for instance, who loves her child but would sacrifice every other child of other mothers for the benefit of hers. A father would make millions of others slaves in order that he may give his children comfort. A sister would lose part of her life if she heard that her brother was betrayed, yet she would not be very scrupulous in bringing lovers to her feet, and sending them off with an “I don’t love you” after she had encouraged them In all our splendor of beautiful words we forget to see that we are in this very tumult and we are the ones who create it Not until we free ourselves from the selfishness within ourselves can we be human beings ” Sometimes with quick sympathy, they throw out encouragement to a younger, less experienced girl, challenging her to her best, as when a Roumanian wrote: 12